Pages

Sunday, 20 April 2014

Some Corner of a Foreign Field - First Playtest

SCOAFF Playtest Game

Grand
Fenwick has been invaded by Ruritania! Here,
deep in the eastern European countryside, British Forces Germany
clash with the Republican Armed Forces in a playtest game of Some Corner of a Foreign Field.
This
is one of the upcoming “Tactical Two Pagers”, inspired by a less
than inspiring modern game at the club.

The table set up - Ruritanians arrive bottom, Brits top.

BFG
– 41 Commando Royal Marine Section

Name

S&D

A

M

P.
Wpn

S.
Wpn

Grenades

Cpl
Jones

4

H

R

SA80

Pistol

Smoke

Mar.
Smith

4

H

R

UGL

Pistol

Smoke

Mar.
Ash

4

H

R

SA80

Pistol

None

Mar.
Dean

4

H

R

SAW

Pistol

None

L.Cpl
Anders

4

H

R

SA80

Pistol

Smoke

Mar.
Kyrie

4

H

R

SA80

Pistol

Smoke

Mar.
Tanner

4

H

R

UGL

Pistol

None

Mar.
Lees

4

H

R

GPMG

Pistol

None

Republican Armed Forces – Strelsau
Grenadiers

Name

S&D

A

M

P.
Wpn

S.
Wpn

Grenades

Cpl
Heinrich

4

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Wehn

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Weiss

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Schwartz

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

Smoke

Gren.
Grun

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

Smoke

Gren.
Rott

3

L

R

UGL

Pistol

None

Gren.
Braun

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Wessel

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Wurst

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Sauer

3

L

R

AK74

Pistol

None

Gren.
Macht

3

L

R

PKM

Pistol

None

Game

The
game started slowly, with both forces edging their way toward the
village square. Corporal
Heinrich moved into an
alleyway to keep an eye on the area, while Braun
and Wessel dashed behind an abandoned car. GPMG
gunner Lees noticed them,
but to begin with couldn't
quite draw
a bead (never roll a 1!).
Next to him, Marine
“Kylie” Kyrie saw them straight away, and
opened up with his SA80. The
Ruritanians ducked behind the car as a spray of bullets passed
overhead.

Braun and Wessel glare across the square.

Hearing
this first exchange of fire, Heinrich went prone. Further up the
square, Tanner and Anders
dashed across and dived prone behind a car, ready to open fire from
a secure position.

Regaining
his composure, Kylie broadcast his targets' location to the rest of
the squad, before firing again. This
time he saw his man go down – little did he know that Grenadier
Ernst Braun had just breathed his last. Lees
went prone to better aim his GPMG, but his first round of fire merely
popped the hood of Wessel's cover.

Looking
past the memorial fountain, Heinrich spotted Tanner & Anders, and
broadcast it to his squad. From
his vantage point in the cafe's upstairs lounge, Grenadier Macht
opened fire with his
machine gun. The car
windows sprayed glass over the stretched out Marines, but no harm
came to them – yet! Rott
came up to join Wessel and fired his UGL at them, scarring the wall
behind them. On the other
flank, Wurst noticed two marines in the garden across the way and
opening fire, informed the rest of his squad. Two
of his squadmates burst into the building behind him to take cover
before returning fire. Wiping
Braun's blood off his face, Wessel
dropped prone, took
careful aim and opened fire.

Wurst and the others see the Marines.

Smith
and Ash, in the garden, opened up from their prone positions behind
the hedges at the AK sparking from the alley. Wurst
fell back, blood spurting from his abdomen as
fire raked his comrades in the barn.

Marines take out Wurst.

Wessel's
reward for his aim
was an armful of lead from his prey. As
he gasped on the cobbles, heavy tracer fire pumped over his head,
spraying him with broken glass. Beside
him Rott's ka-chunk
of fire was rewarded with screams and curses. Macht's
fire moved down the square, toward the enemy machine gun in
the hedges. Fire
from Schwartz and Weiss, who had manoeuvred to the upstairs of the
terrace, caught
Tanner in the chest and laid him out choking next to Anders' still
body.

Tanner and Anders halfway through their ordeal.

Heinrich
raced across the square to tend to Wurst's unconscious body, holding
his guts in with both hands. Seemingly
out of nowhere at the other end of the square, a smoke grenade arced
through
the air,
landed and started pouring fog between the combatants. Dean
and Jones ran behind it to start
draggingtheir
downed comrades away.

Smoke across the square.

The board at the end of the game.

Conclusion

At
this point the game ended – the Marines had sustained 25%
casualties (both Seriously Injured), and
the Ruritanians had one man dead, one Seriously Injured and one
Lightly Injured – 30% casualties. Both
sides were tending to their wounded, and in their current positions,
disengagement would be swift.

The
game ran very well, very quickly. The
difficulty with a
Tactical Two Pager is fitting the whole game on two sides of A4. This
means ruthlessly trimming fat, and
trying to make every mechanism as efficient and multi-purpose as
possible. This
game threw up a few things that just had to be added, and a few rules
that had to be tweaked. This
they were, and
it all went very well. It
was a shame that no Close Combat occurred, but it rarely does in
modern warfare so
I'm not too upset. We also forgot to use the armour rules, but them's the breaks. Our next games will have underlines on the rulesheet, I think!